i'm really such a lady

Me and my medium-length hair

You know how, at the start of each new America’s Next Top Model cycle, all the contestants get makeovers? Usually involving the chopping and bleaching of hair? Here’s a wonderful blog someone wrote about the best and worst ANTM makeovers, in case you need a reminder.

During the makeover episode, one of the girls—or more than one, depending on the cycle—always flips out. They scream about how much they hate their makeovers, crying over how stupid and ugly they look. I always had zero sympathy for those scene-causing B-holes.

“Look at that trick ass,” I’d yell at the TV. “All mad just cause her hair looks different. Small price to pay for the chance to be the next Adrienne Curry or CariDee English. Bitching about her hair when she could be marrying Peter Brady or getting paid to talk about her moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. It’s just hair! Shake my damn head.”

Today, I’d like to apologize to those girls. I lopped 8-10 inches of hair off my own head and now I get it. I, too, am a scene-causing B-hole.

On the left, I look like a long-haired witch. On the right, I look like a short-haired witch. We all know witches supposed to have long hair. Also, my teeth are not that little in person. They’re just overwhelmed by my gums when I smile.

I didn’t want to cut my hair. I take that back. I did want to trim off some of it—maybe five inches, tops—but I felt like I had to cut enough to donate. I’ve had long hair my whole life and I’ve never donated any of it before. I felt overdue for some good deeding, and painlessly cutting strands of dead cells off my head seemed like an easy enough entrance into the world of generosity. I was wrong.

Ashly, my hair stylist, didn’t push me. When I walked into the salon that Friday evening, already defeated, she told me, “Dummy, you don’t have to cut your hair if you don’t want to.” I said I know, but I should. She said, “You should, your hair is disgusting.” She is my sister’s best friend and I hadn’t cut my hair in a year, so she’s allowed to say things like that.

She measured my hair, accounting for layers, and sectioned it into three braids. She looked at me for one final confirmation, I nodded, and she made the first snip. Then the second. I reached back, ran my fingers through what was left of my hair, and gasped the most sincere gasp of my life. It was so short.

I know it’s not that heinous, and that if I ever took the time to style it, it’d look good (shout-out to Ashly). Still, I ain’t a fan. As someone who’s now had both long and medium-length hair, I can say medium-length hair is for the birds.

No disrespect to anyone who has medium-length hair. Not trying to knock you, I just think it’s garbage. Garbage on me, prolly looks fly on you.

Why I hate my medium-length hair.

1. My hair is the color and consistency of a straw broom. It’s much more comfortable having that straw broom gently sweeping across my lower back than having it stab me in my raw, sensitive back of the neck. FYI, I know the back of the neck is called a nape. I was gonna just write nape, but that somehow sounds a li’l freaky when paired with “raw, sensitive.”

2. My hair used to be long enough to tie itself into a bun, no hair elastics required. Do you know how useful that is? It saved me tens and tens of cents in annual hair elastic costs. Hair elastics suck.

Quickly, as a sidebar: Why are hair elastics so terrible? They are the simplest yet least reliable products in the world. They’re too tight when they’re new, and then immediately leap to too loose. And then they break, leaving you and your unbound hair in a bind. There’s maybe a day in a hair elastic’s short, shitty life that it’s actually any good. You know hair elastic manufacturers could easily improve them, but why would they? Because then people wouldn’t buy enough of them to pad hair elastic tycoons’ already fat wallets. I know this sounds like a dramatic rant, but when you go through as many hair elastics as I do, it would start feeling hella dramatic to you, too.

You hair elastic tycoons belong in prison. GOODY, WHAT’S GOOD?

3. It poofs like a mofo. My hair has always been flat and limp and very prone to static. Now it’s poofy and limp and prone to static. Maybe that’s not necessarily worse, but it sure is a change. And change is for nickels, better for dimes/I’d count ‘em all out, but I ain’t have the time. (That’s a rhyme I made up to express my dislike of non-money change.)

4. Medium-length hair whacks me all out of proportion. My long hair used to ground my moon face and my stretched-out, pear-and-pickle-shaped body. Now my short hair frames my moon face and throws my pears and pickles all off balance.

Before

After

Having said all that, it’s actually a nice haircut. Plus, I’m sure my chopped off hairs will find a good home on a good head. Maybe it’s growing on me.

Day-by-day, millimeter by millimeter.

(That means it’s growing on me literally—you know, getting longer. It is not growing on me figuratively. Still hate it.)